The Miraculous Revenge | Page 6

a brogue that would lay your asceticism in ashes at a flash. To her I am an object of wonder, a strange man bred in wicked cities. She is courted by six feet of farming material, chopped off a spare length of coarse humanity by the Almighty, and flung into Wicklow to plough the fields. His name is Phil Langan; and he hates me. I have to consort with him for the sake of Father Tom, whom I entertain vastly by stories of your wild oats sown at Salamanca. I exhausted my authentic anecdotes the first day; and now I invent gallant escapades with Spanish donnas, in which you figure as a youth of unstable morals. This delights Father Tom infinitely. I feel that I have done you a service by thus casting on the cold sacerdotal abstraction which formerly represented you in Kate's imagination a ray of vivifying passion.
"What a country this is! A Hesperidean garden: such skies! Adieu, uncle.
"Zeno Legge."
* * * * *
Behold me, at Four Mile Water, in love. I had been in love frequently; but not oftener than once a year had I encountered a woman who affected me so seriously as Kate Hickey. She was so shrewd, and yet so flippant! When I spoke of art she yawned. When I deplored the sordidness of the world she laughed, and called me "poor fellow!" When I told her what a treasure of beauty and freshness she had she ridiculed me. When I reproached her with her brutality she became angry, and sneered at me for being what she called a fine gentleman. One sunny afternoon we were standing at the gate of her uncle's house, she looking down the dusty road for the detestable Langan, I watching the spotless azure sky, when she said:
"How soon are you going back to London?"
"I am not going back to London. Miss Hickey. I am not yet tired of Four Mile Water."
"I am sure that Four Mile Water ought to be proud of your approbation."
"You disapprove of my liking it, then? Or is it that you grudge me the happiness I have found here? I think Irish ladies grudge a man a moment's peace."
"I wonder you have ever prevailed on yourself to associate with Irish ladies, since they are so far beneath you."
"Did I say they were beneath me, Miss Hickey? I feel that I have made a deep impression on you."
"Indeed! Yes, you're quite right. I assure you I can't sleep at night for thinking of you, Mr. Legge. It's the best a Christian can do, seeing you think so mightly little of yourself."
"You are triply wrong, Miss Hickey: wrong to be sarcastic with me, wrong to discourage the candor with which you think of me sometimes, and wrong to discourage the candor with which I always avow that I think constantly of myself."
"Then you had better not speak to me, since I have no manners."
"Again! Did I say you had no manners? The warmest expressions of regard from my mouth seem to reach your ears transformed into insults. Were I to repeat the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, you would retort as though I had been reproaching you. This is because you hate me. You never misunderstand Langan, whom you love."
"I don't know what London manners are, Mr. Legge; but in Ireland gentlemen are expected to mind their own business. How dare you say I love Mr. Langan?"
"Then you do not love him?"
"It is nothing to you whether I love him or not."
"Nothing to me that you hate me and love another?"
"I didn't say I hated you. You're not so very clever yourself at understanding what people say, though you make such a fuss because they don't understand you." Here, as she glanced down the road she suddenly looked glad.
"Aha!" I said.
"What do you mean by 'Aha!'"
"No matter. I will now show you what a man's sympathy is. As you perceived just then, Langan--who is too tall for his age, by-the-by--is coming to pay you a visit. Well, instead of staying with you, as a jealous woman would, I will withdraw."
"I don't care whether you go or stay, I'm sure. I wonder what you would give to be as fine a man as Mr. Langan?"
"All I possess: I swear it! But solely because you admire tall men more than broad views. Mr. Langan may be defined geometrically as length without breadth; altitude without position; a line on the landscape, not a point in it."
"How very clever you are!"
"You don't understand me, I see. Here comes your lover, stepping over the wall like a camel. And here go I out through the gate like a Christian. Good afternoon, Mr. Langan. I am going because Miss Hickey has something to say to you about me which she would rather